I (25F) don’t know how to tell my boyfriend (26M) how I’m not physically attracted to him and in result crushing hard on one of his best friends…

I know the title sounds harsh but please read the backstory before jumping to conclusions. I’m truly lost and don’t know how to navigate these feelings.

Here is the backstory for context:

About 6 months ago, I was introduced to my now amazing friend group through mutual friends at a music festival. Its a rather large friend group, totaling about 15-20 people that has slowly accumulated more people over time going to different festivals. Everyone is extremely welcoming, friendly, non-judgmental, supportive, and overall just a very healthy group of people to surround yourself with. Aidan (my now boyfriend) asked me on a date right after the festival ended, and he seemed like a fun, easy-going guy so why say no?

We went on our first date a few weeks later and clicked *instantly*. Which neither of us expected. I never had such amazing chemistry with a person. We explained neither of us were really looking, but weren’t exactly not looking either. So for about a month we just dated casually and talked all the time. We live about 2 hours from eachother, so we only saw eachother a total of 3 times in a month but we texted pretty regularly. During this time, we explained how neither one of us were the other’s usual type, but our chemistry was so on point that we wanted to make it official and give this a try.

I’m trying not to turn this into a novel so I’ll sum up the next 5 months:

Because of the distance, we only see eachother once a week for two/three days at a time. So I feel like our honeymoon stage lasted longer than usual because of this.

Aidan is a very free-spirited, care-free guy. Kinda just takes everything day by day. He has a great sense of humor and treats me extremely well. Not to mention I adore his family and vice versa. However, my biggest downfalls with him is he is very feminine, doesn’t prioritize personal hygiene, and I’m just not attracted to him physically besides his face. My usual type is very masculine, like a Mr. Fix It kinda guy. I adore Aidan, but he doesn’t even know what a hammer is and his favorite thing to do is laundry. I like feeling more feminine in the relationship.

For the past 5 months I’ve been trying to tell myself I don’t need those qualities in a partner because I truly love Aidan and how he treats me, but now that things are starting to get more serious (or maybe it’s the honeymoon phase fading) real feelings are setting in. I don’t feel he can fulfill what I’m looking for in a partner, and I’m *really* struggling sexually. Up until now I was still able to get turned on by him despite not being my usual type, but now it’s starting to feel forced. To the point I’m dreading sex. This man truly thinks I’m the best thing to walk this Earth and tells me all the time how much he loves me, how sexy I am, and how happy he is. I feel awful I can’t reciprocate those feelings 100% but I have no idea how to tell him.

We hang out with our friend group here and there, and very recently I found myself starting to fall for one of his best friends, Ryan. He is exactly what I’ve been looking for in a partner; great sense of humor, grounded, family-oriented, sociable, and very handy and attractive. Since our friend group is so large, I didn’t know all of this about Ryan until recently (and he had a girlfriend up until a month ago so I never thought twice about him), but now that he’s single, I keep having these “what-if” thoughts and they make me feel horrible.

Before people come at me, I understand I can’t date him without causing extreme hurt and drama in our drama-free group. So I know that could never be an option. Nor do I think he’d ever go for me anyway since I would be one of his best friend’s exes. But I can’t help I developed these feelings towards him, and I don’t know what to do about it. It’s to the point I’m dreading all of our future festivals because I don’t want to see Ryan. This friend group is filled with the type of people to continue staying friends with both of us even if we broke up, and I don’t want to ruin that.

How do I navigate this situation? I understand how delicate this is and I feel so lost and awful. Please help!